What Price Glory?
by Ouvalyrin
Summary: What price glory? Draco Malfoy, the passage of time, and all that he can become. And yet…


What Price Glory?  
By: Io Ouvalyrin  
Word Count: 1,844  
_What price glory? Draco Malfoy, the passage of time, and all that he can become. And yet…_

- - -

The Death Eater initiation is a quiet, simple affair. Draco casts a spell over himself so as not to feel the pain, hesitating as he does so. When he was eleven he might have insisted on it, but now he wonders. What price glory if you don't pay with blood and tears?

He doesn't remove the spell. Walks up to Voldemort- it seems silly to call this skeleton of a man "The Dark Lord" as if he is something to fear, when he is only a man with a thin, wavering shadow of his former power; and even that only because of his greatest enemy- and receives the Dark Mark, face stony and cold like a Malfoy's should be. He wonders, briefly, what the excitement is all about. He fights boredom, pain muted into nothingness by the spell.

It isn't until he sees why people call them Death Eaters that he realizes maybe he's not fighting for the right cause. Death Eaters. Performing the ultimate sacrilege, crossing the line between man and animal, devouring the bodies of their victims like Chocolate Frogs.

Afterwards, he tries to vomit and stares at his own blood sickly. _It's only right,_ he thinks sickly, though he has never thought about right and wrong before. _My blood for theirs._

He doesn't forget. He doesn't remember. It's like it never happened, but if he digs deep enough, dreams long enough, he'll see it all over. Taste it again, not unlike chicken or beef.

Each night, a ritual of his own, he traces the Mark- he will always think of the Dark Mark in capital letters, D-A-R-K-M-A-R-K- with cool fingers. The contrast between white and black, between skin the color of purity and a scar like sin, never fails to amaze him. He can't tear his eyes away from it, can't stop his fingers from touching it. (He has never had self control.) When he pulls his robes over his head, he can still feel it, can see that everyone can see it. Like the Mark was branded on his face and not his shoulder.

He waits in Hogwarts. He receives no missions from Voldemort, through his father or otherwise. He grows bored of waiting, returns to spitting scathing insults about Potter's heritage and abilities. Notices distantly, as if from underwater, that Potter's eyes turn a darker, blacker shade each day. Knows it's important, can't really care.

Two months later, he starts thinking about morality. About what Slytherin and Gryffindor stand for- two sides of a coin? Gryffindor: more courage than audacity. Slytherin: more audacity than courage. Black and white and the severe line between, clear and outspoken. Made up of rivalry and hatred and the thousand lies of a thousand men.

He researches morality in the only way he knows how. Madam Pince glares at him suspiciously but finds him the books he wants, and he can see in her eyes the accusation of _Death Eater. Murderer._ It doesn't bother him. Anymore.

Grindewald's life. Dumbledore's history. The names pour over him and he does not try to fight back, simply absorbing and learning.

It's in a small, black book where he finds the name Tom Riddle. It is there Draco Lucius Malfoy tastes power for the first time, and finds it infinitely preferable and oddly similar to human meat.

Three months of inactivity. _This is incredibly stupid_, a newly turned seventeen-year old Draco thinks. He sits in bed and draws the curtains around him. Examines the Dark Mark clinically.

_So. I'm following a man who marks his followers in an obvious spot with an even more obvious symbol._

…_how stupid was I?_

Pansy bursts in on him, sweeping aside the curtains. Her eyes, following the pale sweep of his throat to the long lines of his arms, find the Mark instantly. Her mouth becomes a round O of surprise and he sees the brief, fleeting pride in her eyes.

_Draco!_ she cries out. _You have it!_

_Of course I do,_ he says arrogantly. He no longer gels his hair, because now he can run a hand through it like the bored prince he is and say, _You thought different?_

_Look!_ she says and rolls up her sleeves. _Idiot_, he thinks and almost says it. But she was kind to him when he was young, almost enough to be called his friend, so he keeps quiet and pays back his debt.

The Dark Mark. _If she really knew_, Draco thinks, _would she be so proud?_

To Pansy, it's only a badge of status. A symbol of her supposed superiority- Draco wants to brush her away impatiently, because what does she know of Voldemort and Death Eaters? Nothing.

_Very nice_, he says. He turns back to his own, a clearly dismissive gesture. Pansy pouts. The expression looks terrible on her; she's not ugly, but her body is large and her features strong and bold. Needy and vulnerable don't look right on her.

She leaves. He closes his eyes.

The next day, _The Daily Prophet_ informs him that the dementors have left Azkaban. Several prisoners immediately followed.

Draco's father is not amongst them. Draco's father died three weeks ago, and it is another thing to hate Potter for.

_Malfoy._

_Potter._

No insults, no challenges, no fights. Just two people looking at each other equally from across the Great Hall and the hatred of seven years, knowing that today or tomorrow or three years from now they will face each other again on a battlefield. Whether or not they walk away is entirely up to the other.

Draco discovers he doesn't want Potter to die, in that instant. Who, then, would he be able to blame? Who would he fight with? Who would make Hogwarts interesting?

_No,_ he decides then. _He will not die._

Then he returns to studying morality. He learns a Muggle point of view on the creation of the world, and it's curiously attractive. Closer to the truth than he would have thought: a tree, a snake, a great battle that was more psychological than physical, and the fruit of that tree.

He finds that his taste for apples has grown.

Tom Riddle is Lord Voldemort. That discovery is incredibly important, and Draco's smile is like the edge of a knife. A hard slash across his face, cold and impersonal. Like a Slytherin's smile should be.

Names, especially in the wizarding world, have power. To name something is to define it, to give it shape and form and acknowledge its existence.

_Your name,_ he whispers in the Slytherin dormitory at the dead of night, _is Tom Marvolo Riddle._

Out of curiosity, he casts one of the old spells, the kind that depend on blood magic and ritual, drawing upon old, powerful forces he cannot control but only bargain with. And even then, he has to fight to keep his soul.

He asks for Voldemort to dream of his own death. At Potter's hand, at Dumbledore's, even at that Squib Longbottom's. A month later, Crabbe informs him that his father has told him that Voldemort screams when he sleeps. Draco laughs.

The demons come without his needing to summon them. Perhaps they grow fond of his company, of a presumptuous little boy who is made up of quick, biting words that lash across their backs like whips; angles and lines and long, sloping planes, the glimmer flash of white-blond hair.

Or maybe Draco is simply insane.

No one can see them. No one knows they're there. Not even Dumbledore and that makes Draco laugh out loud.

**That,** the demons hiss as their eyes follow the hissing serpent and skull of the Dark Mark, **is a brand of ownership.**

The thought makes Draco bristle. He is a Malfoy- _no one_ owns him. _Get rid of it_.

The demons laugh. **Stupid,** they say to each other, reminding him of nothing more than a pack of gossiping girls. Only girls don't seethe with power spilling over them, don't have eyes that make Draco feel as if he is being stripped and evaluated and flayed alive.

He has nothing left. They are demons- what need do they have of riches, of bribes, of false promises? He has given them more power, stolen what they have wanted- but there is only one thing that they are after.

_A small bit of my soul,_ Draco says.

They consider this. **'A small bit.'**

_A tenth._

In their eyes gleams triumph. **Done.**

His shoulder is smooth in an instant, flesh unscarred, as white as it had been before he turned sixteen. It occurs to him that he might have gotten the short end of the deal. _Next time_, he thinks, _a hundredth._

Because there always will be a next time.

When he turns eighteen, Draco Lucius Malfoy saves and damns the world in an instant. He kills Voldemort easily, contemptuous, ten demons flanking him and his half a soul.

_I,_ he says coldly, not even pausing to celebrate over his victory- what victory, indeed, when demons back you up and your opponent a man already marked for death- _am the new Dark Lord._

Some protest at serving a boy. Before the words have fully left their mouth, they have become dust. Five weeks from now, Avery and Nott will be looked on as cowards and traitors. Snape's eyes narrow as he stares at his once star pupil.

_Do not dare to contradict me._

New of his ascension reaches Hogwarts swiftly. No one knows what to think. Draco Malfoy had never seemed capable of this, as if he would forever remain the spiteful schoolboy who sent others to beat up on little boys.

_What did you think would happen?_ Draco asks as he looks at Dumbledore's ashes. Not even a body to bury, not even that small favor.

Draco leads every attack. He finds the traitors and kills them as warning, and only when it comes to Snape does he hesitate for a split half second. Then, of course, it's too late to feel regret as Snape's ashes blow away into the wind.

It takes Potter ten years to be strong enough to fight Draco. Even then, when he drags himself to Draco's feet, he is almost dead. Draco feels disappointment- at least Potter, who he had hated since he first saw him, should be able to put up a good fight.

An eleven-year old, discovering, _I can't have everything I want._

A seventeen-year old, realizing, _I don't want you to die._

A twenty-eight year old, knowing, _You have to die anyway._

Potter raises furious green eyes to Draco's cold, marble statue face.

_I'm going to kill you._

_You think,_ Draco says calmly, not even the least bit afraid, _that you can?_

_I don't care if I can. I _will_ kill you, Malfoy._

_All right, then._

They raise their wands.

- - -

**Fin**

**- - -**

_just like a fairytale  
__so let me dream in peace_

_- - -_

Review and I love you. XD


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